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concepts and hypotheses which have emerged from the data with “some existing
ones that are clearly useful“ (p.46). However, in the Discovery book
clear advice on how this combination can be pursued is missing.
Consequently, in the most early version of Grounded Theory the advice to
employ theoretical sensitivity to identify theoretical relevant phenomena coexists
with the idea that theoretical concepts “emerge“ from the data if researchers
approach the empirical field with no preconceived theories or hypotheses.
Both ideas which have conflicting implications are not integrated
with each other in the Discovery book. Furthermore, the concept of theoretical
sensitivity is not converted into clear cut methodological rules: it remains
unclear how a theoretically sensitive researcher can use previous theoretical
knowledge to avoid drowning in the data. If one takes into account the frequent
warnings not to force theoretical concepts on the data one gets the impression
that a grounded theorist is advised to introduce suitable theoretical
concepts ad hoc drawing on implicit theoretical knowledge but should abstain
from approaching the empirical data with ex ante formulated hypotheses.
2 Different Approaches in Grounded Theory to Solve the Problem
2.1 GLASER's approach: theoretical coding with the help of “coding families“
Much of GLASER's and STRAUSS' later methodological writings can be understood
as attempts to account for the “theoryladenness“ of empirical observation
and to bridge the gap between “emergence“ and “theoretical sensitivity“.
These attempts followed two different lines:
On the one hand, Barney GLASER tried to clarify the concept of “theoretical
sensitivity“ in an own monograph published in 1978 with the help of the
term “theoretical coding“, a process which he demarcates from “substantive
coding“. Two different types of codes are linked to these different forms of
coding: substantive codes and theoretical codes.
Substantive codes are developed ad hoc during “open coding“, the first stage
of the coding process, and relate to the empirical substance of the research
domain. Theoretical codes which researchers always have to have at their
disposal “conceptualize how the substantive codes may relate to each other
as hypotheses to be integrated into a theory“ (GLASER 1978, p.72). Theoretical
codes are used, in other words, to combine substantive codes to form a
theoretical model about the domain under scrutiny. The examples GLASER
uses for such theoretical codes are formal concepts from epistemology and
sociology which make basic claims about the ordering of the (social) world
like the terms causes, contexts, consequences and conditions: by calling certain
events (which were coded with the help of substantive codes) as causes
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